OTTAWA - A group of Liberal MPs has re-opened the sensitive gender debate about O Canada.

Wednesday, just before question period, Toronto MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett led a group of Liberal women in a "gender-neutral and secular version" of O Canada (see box). Just last year, Prime Minister Stephen Harper beat a hasty retreat after proposing the removal of "thy sons command" from O Canada. Public rejection was swift and overwhelming.

Bennett says she has no interest in officially changing the lyrics of O Canada, but said she will continue to sing her version when Parliamentarians sing the anthem each Wednesday.

"Usually when people do a bilingual national anthem, they flip between English and French and the two lines that bug some people stay in," Bennett said Wednesday. "By flipping back and forth a different way, you can end up with a reasonably coherent version, but the lines that have irritated a few people disappear."

As for the gender neutrality, the original lyrics, as written in 1908, read: "True patriot love thou dost in us command," instead of "in all thy sons command."

When Harper proposed reviewing the original wording, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff took a shot at him for it, calling it the kind of "symbolic gesture" the government uses to ignore real issues.

"Anything that makes a national anthem more gender-sensitive is a good thing," Ignatieff reportedly said at the time. "There's lots of things to do for women that are more important than changing the words of the national anthem, just as there are lots of things to do for pensioners and seniors that are more important than having a Seniors Day."

A spokesman for Heritage and Official Languages Minister James Moore said the government heard loud and clear from Canadians last year there is no appetite to change the anthem.